Did he really say something grossly offensive about the disaster at Hillsborough, or were Liverpool and sundry fans over-reacting?

I'm coming late to this little interweb controversy, but here's what Davies apparently said in a podcast :




For this Davies apparently received death-threats and all manner of vile, hate-filled vitriol.

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I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

I haven't followed it either, but from your quote I'd say:

1 It's none of Alan Davies' business,
but
2 the world feels scarier and scarier.

I've always said he was a twat (the tramp biting thing was only the start), but he doesn't deserve death threats.

Many people already view die hard football fans in a negative light, you thing they would know that and realise that this kind of reaction will not help matters.

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"Now get those trousers off before someone dies!"

I think his comments were insensitive and normally it could have been put right with a full and frank apology. Unfortunately he made the remarks when the news agenda was really quiet so a lot of the papers gave the story more coverage that it should have received and as a result the whole thing has snowballed. Davies does seem to have contributed to it spiralling out of control by posting a picture on twitter, offering to make a donation to the relatives of the Hillsborough victims, and generally moaning about how badly he has been treated.

I think the really baddies in all of this have been the FA who insisted by FA cup Semi Finals should be held at Wembley. I think the FA did this mainly because it would bring in much needed revenue for Wembley but it would have made a lot more sense to play the Liverpool Everton match at Old Trafford and the other semi at the Arsenal ground. If this had happened there would have been no need for Davies to make his remarks. It would have been utterly ridiculous if the FA had insisted on two teams from Liverpool to play at Wembley on Sunday at 6 pm because it would have been a nightmare for all their fans to get home if the matched finished at 8pm.

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

Bit of discussion on the football thread earlier

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1455&start=2205

Thou shalt not take the piss out of the residents of Self Pity City.

It's worth pointing out (and sorry if this has been mentioned on the Football thread) that Hillsborough stands for more than just 96 dead and many more injured. The actions and attitudes of the authorities at the time (and since) make it symbolic of a hell of a lot more than the events of the day itself.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

The one thing I dont understand - and Ive asked Liverpool fans about this, but they seem to get huffy - is what they mean by 'justice'.

They constantly ask for 'justice', but Ive never been able to pin dont what would consititute this. I have a sneaking feeling that what they're actually after is 'absolution' = that the whole thing was the fault of people, or persons, from somewhere other than Liverpool, most notably the South Yorks police.

Any suggestion that Scousers should bear even 1% of the blame (for reasons such as turning up late, or without tickets), is dismissed. And more - to even express such sentiments, is to ask to be shunned.

I'm sure that there are some people who will only be satisfied when Margaret Thatcher, Kelvin MacKenzie and the Chief Constable of South Yorkshire at the time are swinging from lampposts. Well, that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

The problem was that Liverpool had become a symbol of everything certain Thatcherites hated about Britain and wanted to do away with. One of the effects of Hillsborough was that it accelerated changes to football - gentrifying it, encouraging the creation of the Premiership as a global brand - that some saw (and see) as an attack on working class culture. Before Hillsborough, football - even at the highest level - was still very much a local concern. Afterwards, we see the rise in overinflated salaries, epic transfer deals, the WAG culture and all the rest that has made top flight football (in my opinion) more 'sports entertainment' (or if you like another part of the Human Soap Opera) than actual sport. But that's really for discussion elsewhere.

But to summarise - Hillsborough is seen by some as another part of the Thatcherite attack on the traditional working class, a war in which Liverpool was front and centre in the Thatcherite sights.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

But why liverpool?

Other cities were just as affected, but dont feel the need to play the victim card.

Liverpool's decline was stark and harsh. In the 1980s, football was perhaps the only positive contemporary thing going for it. Otherwise it was Yosser Hughes, Bread by Carla Lane, 'thieving Scousers', Degsy and Militant, and 1960s nostalgia. Heysel led to ALL English clubs being banned from Europe, plus the national team from the Euros. More blame on Liverpool. Liverpool came to stand for (in the public consciousness) all that was wrong with Britain.

Then Hillsborough.

Then the fans - the victims - get blamed seemingly as part of an orchestrated effort between the government, police and government-supporting media. They get branded as feral, violent, disgusting beasts, desecrating the bodies of the dead - their own kin.

As the actual truth emerges, it's piecemeal, grudging and half-hearted. Apologies for the reporting are still not forthcoming from certain quarters.

And before you get going on Liverpudlians glorifying criminality or nostalgia (the entire "Ah, he's a rascal, our lad, eh?" culture), let it be said that nobody does nostalgia or glorifying criminality like Londoners. Or that these things are pretty much common all over the country.

Yeah, I can understand why people are still a little bitter.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

Ha ha! Very clever, is that one of your own visage?

Nope. Its a common epithet when referring to Liverpool.

The national team wasn't banned from the Euros, we competed at Euro 88.

I think after what happened at Heysel and with some quarters blaming Liverpool fans in the immediate aftermath of Hillsborough there is an intent to make sure that people know that Hillsborough wasn't the fault of the Liverpool fans. There was a fair amount of anger towards Liverpool over the banning of English clubs from Europe after Heysel, especially from Everton fans as the ban cost them two shots at the European Cup at a time when they were arguably the strongest team in Europe.

Ah yes, so it is. So it is.